Yes, as much as it pains me to say this, stocks are not for everyone. I don’t mean in the sense of one’s proximity to retirement or their risk tolerance. No, what I mean is that some people have certain predispositions that make stocks a disaster as an investment.

What do I mean? Have you met someone that thinks they know everything? Overconfidence can destroy y0ur account balance. How about a person that takes something at face value and runs with it to its logical conclusion? Again, with the amount of news headlines, such inclinations can ruin you.

I think it’s very important for an investor to have a good sense of his or her short coming and be able to understand what he or she doesn’t know.

Being a successful stock selector is not akin to the post-Thanksgiving Day dash you see happening as stores open to kick off the Christmas season. Grabbing a stock here and a stock there is probably going to lead to a loss everywhere. To succeed you need to have a decent degree of self-restraint and the ability to keep your head, even as the rest around you have lost their head.